Methods of Personality Research – Clinical vs. Experimental

Burger (2008), says that there are many theories of personality and psychologists try to explain it with their own approaches. Discussed here will be the psychoanalytic approach, the trait approach, the biological approach the humanistic approach, the behavioural/social learning approach and the cognitive approach. They were devised to search for specific patterns in behaviour and ways of thinking about these

Dispositional personality theories are quite different from biological personality theories. The two will be compared and dissected in this article. The Big Five Personality Test will also be analyzed and how it is used to study personality will be examined.

Personality and how we behave have been of much interest to psychologists for a long time now and because of this there have been many theories and theorists that have been developed. Personality is defined as consistent behavior patterns and intrapersonal processes originating within and individual (Fritzley, 2012, p. 10). There are six main approaches to personality psychology they include: biological approach, humanistic approach, behaviorist approach, trait approach, psychoanalytic approach and cognitive approach. Each approach shines a little light onto why we behave the way we do and how our personalities are formed, the approaches contain many different theories from

This is a good example of this type of research has it outcome of this research depends on the observation on what Pavlov observed this is the main focus of this method. Another example of quantitative research is the Stanford prison experiment where the researchers observed a group of students that volunteered for this experiment when put in a made up prison, even though the experiment was shut down the outcomes of this research was still depending on what the researcher observed.

Everybody has his or her own type of personality. We all act in a certain way that makes us who we are. It is believed that our parents, peers and, the environment we grow up in, shape us. Personality is describes as a combination of emotions, attitude, and behavioral patterns of an individual. There is a reason that we are the way we are and there are many theories that go along with that. Different theorist present their own definitions of the word personality based on their own theoretical positions. Which brings us to discussing Carl Jung’s theory of analytical psychology and Harry

In the field of psychology, many psychologists have contributed to the understanding of personality. Through their research, they have come up with an understanding of the various factors: genetics, environmental, learning, parental, developmental, consciousness, and unconsciousness, that play a role in shaping personality. In addition, it has helped people to discover themselves in a deeper level by learning the various aspects of the characteristics and traits that make up who they are as unique individuals. Out of all the contributors to the study of personality psychology like Sigmund Freud, Karen Horney, and so forth, the focus of this paper will be on Julian Rotter. In delving deeper, the paper will cover Julian Rotter’s major contribution to psychology, how his theory change the understanding of personality, and how it explains various cultural ways of life.

A person’s personality says much about who he or she is. People define personality in different ways. Researcher after researcher has tried to come up with the best definition for what personality truly means. Case studies, correlational studies, and experimental designs are some of the most commonly used methods of research. These methods help better define personality. The advantages and disadvantages of each method differ and can be helpful or hurtful to the research of an individual’s personality.

The most efficient way to measure someone's personality is to observe how they behave, however, the behavioural observation method is seldom used in research. Behavioural data (reports) can help collect information about normal and abnormal personality characteristics and ways of thinking. To obtain behavioural observation data, researchers directly observe and record the behaviour of people in a laboratory or a more naturalistic (real-world) setting. This method is useful because many behaviours can be assessed through direct observation. Usually, two or more researchers conduct such observations to ensure higher accuracy and reliability (Schultz & Schultz, 2017) and although this method of data collection does

The New York Times published an article on the modern day Pavlov’s experiment. This article tried Pavlov’s dog experiment on humans. Their experiment hoped to find what triggers the brain with classical conditioning. In their study they had thirteen subjects all humans. They tried to have all the subjects associate abstract images with either the smell of peanut butter or vanilla. The subjects where presented with the smells through tubes. In their research they discovered that the group that thought they were in experiment to learn about computer tasks would associate the smell to the pictures better. The subjects were also noted to work better at associations when the pictures were presented with a pleasant smell, than those that were not

For psychologists, one of the more popular theories espoused is the trait approach to personality, or “the idea that people have consistent personality characteristics that can be measured and studied” (Kalat, 2002, 512). However there are several problems that arise. First, there are significant cross-cultural differences, so one set of personality traits for one culture may differ considerably for another. The next problem would concern the creation of a test that could accurately measure these traits. While psychologists have for the most part addressed these issues, I will focus on the latter of the two. There has been a

Born in 1849, Ivan Pavlov’s name became known worldwide due to several reasons. First, Pavlov won the Nobel Peace Prize in his physiological work with collecting a dogs’ gastric juice. His original work then led to the psychological point of view of looking at a dog’s drool, which opened a strictly objective way to analyze how dogs learn, namely classical or Pavlovian conditioning. Pavlov’s work led to many contributions in the medical field and objective studies that are still used today, however, without the use of unethical experimentation on dogs. Pavlovian conditioning is well known, yet there are many misconceptions about the experiment and an individual’s view on Pavlov himself.

This paper is a comparison of three different viewpoints on the subject of personality. Carl Jung, B.F. Skinner, and Carl Rogers all had very different outlooks on what defined someone’s personality. As an added feature I have included myself as a theorist because my views are also different from the previous mentioned theorists. This paper will also look briefly into the background of each theorist because their views on life began in their childhood. Amazingly you will notice the all had similar backgrounds, but came up with completely different ways of looking at life.

For centuries, philosophers, personality theorists and other thinkers have been trying to answer: what personalities are like, how personalities are developed, why different personalities are developed and how personalities can be changed (Pervin & Cervone, 2013). George A. Kelly, an American psychologist born in 1905 in Kansa, is one of those major contributors in the field of personality psychology (Warren, 1998). In this paper, I am writing to critically review George A. Kelly's perspective on personality. I will first review Kelly's philosophy of

The study of personality traits is beneficial in identifying the many variables that exist from human to human; the combinations of these variables provide us with a true level of individuality and uniqueness. In the field of psychology, trait theory is considered to be a key approach to the study of human personality (Crowne, 2007; Burton, Westen & Kowalski, 2009). This paper aims to identify a number of significant contributors who have played crucial roles in both the development and application of trait theory. This paper then moves focus to these theorists, outlining their theory and analysing both the strengths and weaknesses of those theories. An illustration of the methods used in trait measurement is given and includes the

Personality is the set of emotional qualities, ways of behaving, etc., that makes a person different from the next. There are theories and assessments that can be looked upon to assess personality traits of people. Some of which include The Big-Five Horney’s Neurotic Trends, Jungian Psychological Types, and The Dark Triad, and all of which are used to describe the way a person is. The purpose of this paper was for me to be able to interpret results from all of these assessments, and to be able to judge the results based on my life experiences.